Scheduled fare hikes for trains and buses is best policy, study says

Researcher promotes way to avoid political fights, but some say new law would make it too easy to raise prices

June 04, 2012|Jon Hilkevitch: Getting Around

Matthew Meltzer, an attorney who has focused on transportation, recently discussed his funding idea: Allow for automated fare increases and avoid a political fight every few years when theres a budget crisis. (Heather Charles, Chicago Tribune)

For train and bus riders, it seems the only thing worse than a fare increase is a huge fare increase.

Metra customers are still complaining four months after the commuter railroad imposed the biggest fare hike in its history — about 30 percent on average. The whopping boost followed a fare freeze that was in place since 2008.

Although CTA customers dodged the fare-hike bullet for the last three years, they may face a big jump in their commuting costs as early as 2013.

Is there a better way?

A new research study conducted by a former CTA attorney concludes there is, certainly. It comes down to swallowing the bitter medicine in regular, periodic doses, rather than undergoing shock treatment every once in a long while.

Because fare hikes are inevitable (unless public transportation were provided for "free'' and new taxes imposed to pay for the service), why not remove politics and public opinion and manage the entire fare process more wisely, the researcher suggests.

The study by attorney Matthew Meltzer boldly recommends the passage of state legislation mandating regular automatic fare hikes. It's a controversial idea, but the fare increases would be as modest as a nickel or a dime every two or three years in the case of the CTA and Pace, and a little bit more for Metra, whose fares are structured on distance traveled.

The change, essentially treating transit fares like any other commodity, would provide improved fare stability for transit users and more predictable revenue streams for the agencies that operate the trains and buses, said Meltzer, 26, who presented his paper Friday at the 2012 Transport Chicago conference downtown.

"With everything in life, with few exceptions, prices rise. We don't like it, but it's easier psychologically for the transit rider to digest that your fares will go up 10 cents in two years than waiting until a fiscal crisis is taking place and fares need to be increased a quarter or 50 cents all of a sudden to balance the budget,'' Meltzer said in an interview.

"The fundamental problem is that people like (CTA President) Forrest Claypool, by no fault of his own, are essentially politicians, and no politician wants to raise fares because nobody wants to be on the record as saying, 'I need to take more money out of your wallet,''' said Meltzer, of Hyde Park, who worked as an intern in the CTA law department in 2010.

The CTA did not respond to a Tribune request for comment on this study.

Meltzer acknowledged it would be difficult to persuade lawmakers in the General Assembly in Springfield to approve automatic fare hikes for public transit. But it would be a one-time fight and could be won, Meltzer said.

He added that his proposed legislation would raise only base fares. He would leave it to the discretion of the transit agencies to set the price of various passes, transfers and future fare programs such as congestion pricing, which involves charging a higher fee to ride at peak travel hours.

Claypool last week kicked the fare-increase can down the road, and the tracks, too, when he unexpectedly told the Regional Transportation Authority board, with minimal notice given to even some high-level CTA staffers, that he was ruling out raising fares for the rest of the year, although he made no promises about 2013.

The cash-strapped CTA, which limps from one operating-budget crisis to another, did not increase its base fares for 12 years, from 1991 through 2003. Since then, base fares have jumped 25 cents three times, in 2004, 2006 and 2009, to the current price of $2.25. The 75-cent increase represented a 50 percent boost over the 1991 base fare of $1.50.

"Instead, if all along the way the CTA had raised fares 10 cents every three years, they would have gotten to the same place eventually, but without each time creating these crises that cause tremendous fights,'' Meltzer said.

The aversion to dealing with fares is common across the transit spectrum. A recent survey of more than 300 U.S. transit agencies by the American Public Transportation Association found that 95 percent raised fares only when confronted by budget challenges, rather than on any scheduled basis to keep pace with inflation and to use the extra revenue to improve the quality of service.

Claypool had been saying since December that fare hikes and service cuts would be virtually unavoidable by this summer if CTA labor unions did not negotiate away advantageous work rules that Claypool maintained are costing the transit agency millions of dollars annually.

Predictably, the unions haven't budged on Claypool's unenforceable demands for $80 million annually in union concessions in the next labor contract. So Claypool somehow came up with "one-time-only" internal savings totaling $80 million — money that Claypool previously said the CTA simply didn't have for use to prevent fare hikes and/or service reductions in 2012.